iTunes Match Loses Its First Label

Prior to launch iCloud, Apple was apparently in talks with all four of the major labels – Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI about licensing their songs for what would be later revealed at WWDC, iTunes Match which is a service that matches the songs on your computer against what iTunes has to offer and for a fee of $25 a year it basically allows you to access those songs via the iCloud while at the same time making it “legal”. It’s almost like money laundering except with music.Well apparently not all the labels were too enthused about the idea and one of smaller labels – Numero Group, has decided that they did not want to be part of iTunes match, quoting from their blog post:

“The simple reason is that Apple and their major label “partners” have created a reward system that is both incomprehensible in scope and totally out of sync with iCloud’s streaming peers’ (Rdio, Spotify, et al) financial mechanics. As we have been entrusted with an incredible wealth of creative assets, and our primary responsibility is to our partners; the artists, producers, and songwriters that make up the Numero catalog, we feel that Apple’s pittance is an insult not only to them, but every other musician, living or dead, and, if the latter is the case, their heirs.”

Since the specifics of the deal that Apple has worked out with the major labels and the smaller ones is unknown, it’s hard for us to comment on whether Numero Group’s reasoning is a sound one but we do know that for $25 a year, it’s a good price to pay for those who have been illegally downloading their music all this while and it could be one of the answers to piracy that the music industry has been trying come up with all this while. So readers, would you be willing to pay $25 a year to make your music collection “legal”? We’re not sure how much those artists will be getting from our $25 but it’s a lot better than zero.